Do you think Google got it right with Panda? Tell us what you think.

iCrossing counts plenty of big brands among their clients. Among them are: AAA, Auto Trader, BMW, Chevron, Coca-Cola, EA Games, eBay, FedEx, Hyundai, Kia, Marie Claire, Mary Kay, MasterCard, Mazda, Nokia, Porsche, LEGO, and Toyota, to name a few.

Collin Cornwell, VP of natural search at iCrossing, has shared some data looking at a couple examples of big brands that have followed the trend. He would not get into names, but calls them a “premier travel and hospitality client,” and a “big-time banker.”

It’s worth noting that these companies also saw no changes in Bing or Yahoo, and tha we don’t know what the content for the pages in question actually looks like – a key piece of the puzzle, obviously.

Here’s some data from the travel site:

According to iCrossing, Page 1 ranking increased 18% from the big brand from the beginning of the year, and 6.3% from when Panda was released, while brands like Suite101 and CheaperThanHotels.com saw 96% and 95% drops for the same keywords.

And some from the Bank:

The bank saw an increase of 45% for all non-branded keywords from the beginning of the year, and 10% increase in Page 1 placements since Panda. Smaller brands saw 94% – 84% drops.

“Google has been favoring big brands for years – starting with its ‘Vince Update’ back in 2009 and then again in 2010 when Google decided to include BRANDS in related searches,” said Cornwell.

“While the Panda update wasn’t meant to affect large brands directly, the change(s) seem to have had an indirect impact as the ‘lower quality’ sites continue to slip down in the search engine results pages,” he added.

By nature, big brands tend to get more links, more sharing, and more engagement. They also generally have more resources to apply to marketing tactics, web development, and design – all of which can play directly into how their content is viewed in Google.

The question is whether or not this approach works. Is content quality synonymous with brand recognition? No, but it is related. Brand recognition is directly related to trust, but not all big brands are well-liked or trusted by everybody. This is why Google’s domain-blocking features and the +1 button are perhaps two of the most important updates to Google’s search quality practices we’ve seen in a long time.

Quality is in the eye of the beholder, and these features give more say to the people. That said, there is a great potential for both of these to be abused by users. Google recently said, “as with any new ranking signal, we’ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality over time,” regarding the +1 button.

Here’s what Google’s Matt Cutts had to say about big brands ranking in Google a couple years ago:

He said he disagrees that big brands always do well, and that Google often hears complaints from big brands who don’t think they’re doing as well as they should.

How significant is brand to content quality? Share your thoughts.

Google’s share of natural search traffic to enterprise-level sites in September increased to 76.68%. That is up from 74.7% last year and 75.89% in August. Bing’s share also increased, reaching 8.21%. That is up from 6.46% a year ago (MSN) and 8.06% in August.

Yahoo’s share decreased to 11.10%. A year ago it held 14.13% share, and in August it was at 11.83%. Also declining were AOL and Ask, who came in with 1.75% and 0.41% respectively. AOL declined year-over-year from 2.16%.

The results are perhaps not too surprising. The Web search market in general has been following a similar path. Compete data released last week showed that Google increased from 72.3% to 72.6% month-over-month, while Bing’s share crawled up from 8.7% to 8.8%. Yahoo’s share dropped from 15.8% in August to 14.7% in September.

As our own Doug Caverly noted, "Obviously, Microsoft’s incentive to forge a partnership will shrink if Bing can steal searchers away from Yahoo. Yahoo might need to hold its own (or at least lose to Google, but not Bing) in order to make sure Microsoft doesn’t think better of the arrangement before the 2010 target date."

Related Articles:

> Compete: Yahoo Stumbled In September

> Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More for Google/Bing Rankings

> Microsoft and Google Score Deals with Twitter

The app works by scanning the most active social media networks for a keyword or phrase, and returns a real-time snapshot of what is being said.

Users enter a search term on an interface, and the most current conversations from the various social media sites are returned. Say What? displays the most recent conversations in aggregate, so users don’t have to search social networks or blogs with a mobile browser.

Users have the option of finding out more on a particular topic, and a search his saved so they can receive updates for their regularly-searched terms.

"iCrossing developed Say What? to demonstrate how search, social media and mobile can work together to provide users with information that is real-time and relevant," said Rachel Pasqua, director of mobile strategy, iCrossing.

"Our goal was to put one-click social media monitoring in the palm of the user’s hand."

When I searched for car insurance on Google web search, I could not see the green color as iCrossing did. Perhaps it is because the test is being conducted on a limited number of data centers. It may take some time before we get to see the green color in Google SERPS.

However, according to iCroosing this is what they have witnessed.

It seems that Google continues to strive towards evolution and will continue to do so. Way to go Google!

Comments

The Internet, previously tied with newspapers as the second most popular channel, it now leads newspapers 55 percent to 47 percent as an election information resource. Eighty-seven percent of potential voters search on an election issue, and finding more information about a candidate’s position on an issue is still the main reason they do candidate searches (85%).

Searches related to the economy have grown 29 percent and global warming is no longer in the top 10 of issues searched online. The most popular issues are health care (49%), the economy (49%), the war in Iraq (48%), and gas prices (44%).

Candidate search volumes have increased significantly since the orginal"How America Searches: Election 2008" report.  Barack Obama leads on issues related natural search visibility, with 60 percent share of the market followed by Ron Paul (36%), Hillary Clinton (3%), and John McCain (1%).

More women are going online to learn about candidates and issues. The original report found that men conducted election research online at higher rates than women (47% vs. 38%). Both genders are relying more heavily on the Internet for election information; 56 percent of men and 54 percent of women.
 

More than three quarters of people said health care professionals are their most trusted health resource but Internet resources are considered more trustworthy than friends/coworkers, pharmaceutical companies and television.

Thirty-four percent of health searchers use social media resources to research health related topics, with Wikipedia, and online forums and message boards the most important individual tools. Social media attracts 18-to-34 year old health searchers in particular, while men over all are more likely than women to use online social media to research health issues.

Two-thirds of online adults have used general search engines such as Google and Yahoo to find health related information. Usage of health specific search engines such as Healia and Medstory is minimal by comparison.

The study concludes," To take full advantage of opportunities to connect with in-market health consumers, content must be available in and optimized for a range of formats, and ideally should comprise a truly interactive component that allows consumers to socialize."

"In order to maximize relevancy, content should be oriented around the health topics that most preoccupy consumers, such as symptoms, treatment, conditions and wellness issues including exercise, nutrition and weight loss."
 

iCrossing Acquires Web Development Agency

Many of the details remain undisclosed, but it’s a good bet that Proxicom had a high price tag – this Web development agency has worked with the likes of Toyota, DuPont, and Chevron.  Then again, so has iCrossing – the two companies seem well suited to each other.

“iCrossing’s DNA is in search, which represents consumer interest and intent,” explained Herzog in a press release.  “Proxicom’s DNA is in driving superior brand and user experiences.  Together, we are poised to define the next generation of digital marketing by creating experiences – whether they are through the Web, mobile or emerging channels – that are driven by the consumer perspective.”

Indeed, this acquisition has made iCrossing the world’s largest digital marketing agency; it’s probably poised to do anything it wants.  And here’s where an interesting bit of speculation comes in.  Janet Driscoll Miller writes, “I personally expect an IPO.  Because the main funders behind this acquisition are venture capitalists, they’ll want to recognize a return on investment as soon as they can.  And I also expect that the founders of iCrossing will want to cash in as well as the SEM market not unlike the web design and development market, becomes more commoditized over time.”

That makes sense, and there’s also evidence to support Miller’s opinion – in the release, Proxicom’s COO emphasized his desire to “raise the ROI bar even higher.”

If you don’t agree, blame Goldman Sachs for the existence of this article – that firm led investors.  Oak Investment Partners also participated, and Ren Riley, who serves as a general partner there, gave a statement in the official press release.  “[iCrossing] has successfully built upon its core expertise in search to create a ‘next-generation’ digital marketing agency,” he began.

“Over the last nine years, the iCrossing team has proven that they understand how to make digital marketing work for the Fortune 500.  The company is also ideally positioned to help big brands leverage opportunities in emerging channels such as video, mobile and social media,” Riley concluded.  And those fields are certainly where everyone appears to be headed.

It’s hard to say with any specificity, however, what iCrossing will do with its $62 million.  Even Red Herring’s Tomio Geron, who got an interview with iCrossing’s CEO, discovered little.  “Raising this money adds to our war chest and strategic acquisition capital,” Jeff Herzog told him.

In any event, iCrossing already counts Yahoo, Google, MSN, and Ask among its partners, and Coca-Cola, General Motors, and PR Newswire among its clients; $62 million in funding isn’t likely to drag the company down at all.

eMarketer estimates that by 2011, mobile search will account for about $715 million, or close to 15 percent of a total mobile advertising market worth $4.7 billion.

In April 2007, iCrossing reported that three-quarters of mobile Internet subscribers access mobile search services.

The U.S. mobile search market is expected to have some growing pains over the next two or three years as the major operators, portals and mobile search start-ups compete to be the mobile search leader.

eMarketer Senior Analyst John du Pre Gauntt said, "Mobile search in the US has all the right parts on the table: a huge online advertising ecosystem, the world’s leading content industry, massive portal players, major league mobile operators and a host of VC-backed start-ups."

"In other words, it’ll be a bloody mess over the next few years sorting out the center of gravity for mobile search, as each player tries to convince the others to follow its lead. The good news for marketers is that there’s enough of a prize for the winner(s) that resolution will come."

Search Isn’t Finding Candidate Stands On Issues

Only television has a broader reach with voters than the Internet, yet the people who would be President have been missing out on both paid and organic search. Voters, particularly the 18-34 demographic that uses the Internet more than newspapers, want more from their candidates.

Research by iCrossing presented in their ‘How America Searches: Election ’08′ report found that candidates have yet to find the best way to present their stand on issues online. People have turned to traditional news sites and social media sites far more often than to the sites run by candidate campaigns.

In particular, iCrossing found that issues matter to voters, but the candidates are not responding. Their research found nearly all candidates ranking poorly for issue-based search visibility, despite trends indicating a desire to find that information.

During May 2007, searchers sought information on a number of issues. The top five were the war in Iraq, gas prices, health care, global warming, and the war on terror. When people search for candidates, the most frequent reason involved finding their stances on issues.

That interest isn’t being rewarded, according to the report:

iCrossing found all key candidates ranking in natural search results for their own names, which is to be expected. The surprise is that very few of the candidates are visible in natural search for issue-based terms or other candidates’ names.

Issue-based content is really the key to a robust natural search engine optimization strategy for 2008 presidential candidates (based on the volume of searches for and interest in political issues), and right now the visibility for candidates on issue-based terms (all referenced in the appendix of this document) is minimal at best.

Out of 126 terms, iCrossing found only two major candidates visible in natural search (each for one term):

•  Obama ranked on the 3rd page of MSN for Iraq •  Clinton ranked on the 2nd page of MSN for DNC

It’s easy enough to find a candidate by name, as iCrossing noted, and from there get to a website soliciting contributions for those White House hopefuls. Searching for what they might do when they get there, and a lot of voters are searching first, has been less effective than it could be.